One of the more frustrating aspects of the Columbine shooting was the reports that the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team waited for four hours before entering the school. They were worried about bombs; the police’s SOPs said, essentially, that it was better to leave the students and staff inside the building on their own than to risk police lives to a potential bomb threat.
It doesn’t impugn the courage of any officer, or the integrity of the Jeffco SD, to say that when in doubt, police procedure left the citizen on his or her own – but I can’t imagine the frustration and horror that the parents outside must have felt, as the hours ticked by, knowing their kids were inside the building, not knowing if they were alive or dead but knowing that there were a whole lot of cops in battle rattle waiting in the assembly area not rushing in to save them.
Of course the horrific toll among New York’s first responders on 9/11 showed that astounding bravery is a common trait among American cops and firefighters. When the “standard operating procedure” is to go in and do what they’ve been trained to do, the police, fire, paramedics and other first responders in the US – and, I suspect, most of the world – step up and do the job.
———-
But when I saw reports like this one from Mumbai – that the Mumbai police froze under fire from the terrorists during last week’s terror attacks – I thought about a couple of lessons that smart people learned from the wave of mass shootings in the US, among other places.
- You can not count on the police to save you from even petty street crime, much less this sort of systematic assault.
- When you leave both raw courage and standard procedure out of the equation, remember – the police aren’t soldiers. They are trained to uphold the law; to maintain control of situations where they generally have the advantage. Police do not train to fight pitched firefights against disciplined, motivated, military attackers – not even the SWAT teams.
- The only places on earth that are truly remotely safe from this sort of assault are the places where terrorists know that death (to them) doesn’t necessarily wear a uniform and drive in a plainly-identifiable car; places where the civilian population aren’t soft targets, like sheep in a pen. Nearly every mass-shooting in the United States in recent years has happened in places where the civilian isn’t allowed to have the means to self-defense at hand; schools, malls that are posted “no guns“, New York subways, colleges that are “gun-free zones” and the like.
Indians – individual Indians, anyway – seem to be learning all of these lessons; Sebastian D’Souza, the photographer who got so many portfolio-worthy shots of the gunmen as they carried out their mayhem, famously wrote:
The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D’Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. “I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said. “With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles…
…
The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D’Souza added: “I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.”
Mumbaiian blogger Amitabh Bachchan’s post on his reaction to the attack has been getting a lot of attention (emphases added); like a lot of Americans when faced with this sort of unreasoning malice, he’s taken a sensible precaution and drawn a metaphorical line in Mumbai’s beach sand:
My pain has been the sight and plight of my innocent and vulnerable and completely insecure countrymen, facing the wrath of this terror attack. And my anger has been at the ineptitude of the authorities that have been ordained to look after us. I have simply loved and endorsed the sentiments expressed by one of those that came on for comments on the Arnab reportage, Suhel Seth. They were strong, precise and most apt. And of course I have had the greatest pride in those from the forces that have and continue to fight for our freedom. Brilliant officers and police personnel have laid down their lives for us. I can only but salute them and respect their sincerity in the call of duty.
The response needs to be much more than symbolic:
I have been at the receiving end of a million calls and an equal number of sms’s the whole day to come live on TV or on the print media to express my views on the current situation and am being lured by words such as ’we need you to speak to express solidarity and for the people to maintain their calm’.
This is disgusting !! I will NOT do that. TELL ME AND ORDER ME INSTEAD THAT WE REQUIRE FOR EVERY INDIAN TO GET UP AND WALK INTO THE FACILITIES WHERE THE ACTION IS ON AND I WILL BE THE FIRST TO WALK. But, please do not ask me to come and make sloppy statements that will do nothing more than create viewer interest in said particular channel ! I respect what the media is doing in serving the nation with its continuous information bulletins and I admire the brave and diligent manner in which they have devoted themselves to the cause. But what they expect me do I find against my ethics and want to be excused from it…
…As an Indian, I need to live in my own land, on my own soil with dignity and without fear. And I need an assurance on that.
And at the end of the day, one person is responsible for that assurance:
I am ashamed to say this and not afraid to share this now with the rest of the cyber world, that last night, as the events of the terror attack unfolded in front of me I did something for the first time and one that I had hoped never ever to be in a situation to do.
Before retiring for the night, I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow. For a very disturbed sleep.
The responses in his comment section and the Indian (and other) media have been the sort of thing that any American Second-Amendment activist is well used to hearing. Bachchan responded in a way that’d do any of us proud:
The act of pulling out my revolver is a symbolic metaphor, a figure of speech, to demonstrate my complete loss in faith in the system and in the governance, in providing me, a citizen of India, with my rightful sense of security. It is to demonstrate that now I shall have to personally look after my family and myself and not depend on the state. A state that is just so miserably incapable of protecting its citizens…
…For too long we have remained the servile submissive nation. There has been no strong adjective to describe our character.
I’d love to interview Mr. Bachchan on the NARN one of these weekends.
The lessons should be obvious:
- Every citizen in a truly free society should have not only the right, but the means to ensure their own security.
- Indeed, it should be considered a duty, alongside voting and jury duty, for every citizen in a free society to be competent, equipped and capable of defending him/herself and his/her family from whatever disorder threatens them.
- No society that infringes those rights and responsibilities is really “free”, other than the “freedom” the coop of chickens enjoys as long as someone else keeps those foxes away.
Citizens in any “free society” should be a pack, not a herd or flock.
(Via Collins)
ATTENTION MITCHKETEERS:
You have long been accustomed to ganging up on Angryclown, Penigma, Flash, RickDFL and others who enter Shot in the Heart of Darkness armed only with their wits and with a desire to educate and civilize you benighted wingnuts. Despite your vastly greater numbers (because, in fact, of your Lilliputian intellects), we have always considered it a fair fight.
No longer.
JRoosh, The Poor Man’s Mitch Berg(TM), has apparently decided he can’t win an argument without putting his finger on the scale. He has censored Angryclown’s posts, depriving you, in the process, of Angryclown’s superior wisdom, judgment and wit. He has chosen to have the last word in the “Obammy” debate because he is uncomfortable being unmasked as a race-baiter.
Very well. To paraphrase the greatest of all wingnut presidents, you won’t have Angryclown to kick around anymore.
Perhaps you will never read this valedictory post, insane wingnuts. If not, it will be your loss. For with this brief note, Angryclown takes leave of these precincts forever. Angryclown will now give you a moment to let that sink in….
FOREVER.
AC the only constant race-baiter on this blog is You! always has been. You whinging because someone censored your hate filled bigoted maunderings is at best disingenuous.
Gosh you’d think this was AC’s blog or something.
Can’t say I’ll miss AC. . .
Having had my share of comments axed at other blogs, I’m rather surprised by AC’s thinner than thin skin. It’s the Internet, dickhead; get used to it.
Don’t let the screen door hit your baggy pants in the a** on the way out.
you won’t have Angryclown to kick around anymore.
Tears of a clown. Good thing you’ve got that long hanky in your pocket.
As I’ve said before, you were allowed to post here without limitations 99.99% of the time. Go post on the lefty blogs and yank their chains the same way you have here, then come back and bitch about censorship.
Aw, Clown. So (wait for it…wait for it…) thin-skinned?
I mean, Penigma, Rick, TiSP, Fulcrum and the rest of this blog’s “chattering class” needs the help!
Besides – yes, I’ve “censored” comments here before, including yours. All comments exist at the proprietors’ pleasure. This is really nothing new, albeit rare. As Brad noted, in the 30,000-odd comments this blog has had in seven years, I’ve whacked maybe a dozen.
Roosh whacked a third that number yesterday, including one that drew blood on his fabricated “Obammy” defense.
No, it’s too late to bring Angryclown back, Mitch. Angryclown departs…
FOREVER.
He’ll be back.
Er…no, don’t?
Oh, the Clown’s okay. In his favor is that he is sometimes funny and he is always, always brief; a character-trait to be admired in contrast to some. His mixing it up here was generally entertaining in a Bobby-the-Brain-Heenan kind of way. I believe he was likely censored for stepping over the line in zinging a non-combatant; a punishment not unexpected or unreasonable. That he would use this as cover for leaving the field is kind of surprising; my hunch is he’s actually taking a cabinet-position in the Obama administration.
I can’t believe that with the big chunk of red (or, I guess, blue) meat I’ve thrown him in this thread, he’s still tossing his hissy over getting gonged.
He musta not wore his helmet when he got shot out of the cannon during the Sunday matinee.
my hunch is he’s actually taking a cabinet-position in the Obama administration
Undersecretary of Snark, I think.
No, it’s too late to bring Angryclown back, Mitch. Angryclown departs…
FOREVER.
Leaving forever … twice? In one thread? He’s as consistent in quitting as Peev.
Who will provide the homophobic “humor” now? Got a substitute lined up Mitch?
Clarabel’s first FOREVER lasted all of an hour and sixteen minutes.
On another note, nice post, Mitch. I used this tragedy as a reminder that I ought to be carrying where permitted. Well said.
Angryclown is the first to fall victim to SITD’s Fairness Doctrine. He is, however, free to form his own blog and demand equal time….
Funniest Clown posts in a long time!
Say, Clown?
If you want censor free commenting, feel free to try your luck at Pair O’ Dice….feel free to step on or over the peltless corpses of your moonbat bretheren as you enter; your call.
HAHA!
Reminds me of when I saw The Who during their first farewell tour.
Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer,
AC leaving this late
In his career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.
I guess now someone else will have to make the obvious Plaxico Burress reference in relation to the actual subject matter of this post.
I guess now someone else will have to make the obvious Plaxico Burress reference in relation to the actual subject matter of this post.
Hmmm. Maybe AC is Plaxico Burress.
No, it’s too late to bring Angryclown back, Mitch.
***CRICKETS***
Mitch pleaded: “Er…no, don’t?”
Well if you’re going to debase yourself in front of the Mitchketeers by begging, what the heck. Sure, Angryclown will come back.
But I have to tell you, Mitch, I don’t think your new intern JRoosh is working out. Angryclown agrees that, in the past, SitD generally has tried to publish all comments, whether fair or foul. But this Roosh fellow is purging on-point comments simply because his posts can’t withstand serious scrutiny. I think you’d better let him go, or at least limit him to making photocopies and fetching danish for you. Your call.
The real news of course is that, thanks to your heartfelt entreaties, Angryclown is back…
FOREVER.
“thanks to your heartfelt entreaties, Angryclown is back…”
Did anybody see this coming?
Oh yeah, someone doesn’t think ac’s every shitty word is hilarious and he pitches a fit. Perfectly par for the course in libville.
I don’t think your new intern JRoosh is working out.
Actually, all feedback about the editorial staff is collected at “360 Review” time, which is part of our annual performance review process.
This process will be scheduled shortly after I consummate my relationship with Reese Witherspoon.
And notice…don’t censor AC…that brilliant ass from the east. But get rid of JRoosh…censor JRoosh. Puke.
Angryclown agrees that, in the past, SitD generally has tried to publish all comments, whether fair or foul.
And trust him, the Clown knows foul! It’s his life!
Did anybody see this coming?
Shocka!
Your blog, your rules, Mitch, but, well, sheesh — you’ve got a terribly interesting story, followed by thirty comments about some dull guy who doesn’t get that there’s supposed to be applause before repeated curtain calls.
Mangy Clown’s declarations are analogous to the vapid Hollywood types who threatened to leave the country if President Bush were re-elected in 2004.
In the end, it was all just a bunch of sniveling little weasels looking for attention.
Jeez, what a drama clown.
I think it was all an evil angryclown plot: draw attention away from what is a very good and discussion worthy post. 😉
you’ve got a terribly interesting story
Why yes! Yes, we do!
How about that story, huh?
“drama clown”
best summary of AC yet.
33 comments so far, joelr.
Including yours, of course.
True, AC. You’ve successfully shut down conversation on an issue; you may wave your dong around in triumph, if you’d like.
The real news of course is that, thanks to your heartfelt entreaties, Angryclown is back…
FOREVER.
He just didn’t know how to quit us.
Gold star for ya there, Bill C. If Angryclown had thought of that line first, he woulda used it.
“I shall have to personally look after my family and myself and not depend on the state”
I wonder what else “the state” is bad at?